Reflections on the Sociodemographic and Medicolegal Profiles of Female Criminal Defendants

Abstract

This article describes the sociodemographic and medicolegal characteristics of 222 female criminal defendants ref erred by the courts to a forensic psychiatric service over a 10-year period. The typical female criminal defendant was young, poorly educated, occupationally disadvantaged, unmamed, and from a broken home. Three Axis I diagnoses (schizophrenia, major affective disorder, and psychoactive substance use disorder) accounted for 55% of the psychopathology, whereas antisocial personality and borderline personality disorders accounted for 16% of personality disorders among the group. The most common charge was that of property offenses.